All season, we’ve been trying to figure out precisely what is responsible for the Clippers’ demise. Watching Detroit run its offense on Sunday crystallized it for me: The Clippers have nobody on the floor who can pass the ball. Think about the Pistons for a second – Billups, Hamilton, Prince, Wallace, Webber. With the exception of Hamilton, every single one of these guys has a preternatural ability to move the ball, and Hamilton is no slouch, it’s just that his function in the offense is to move off the ball. When the ball ends up in his hands, it’s generally the culmination of the possession.

The Clippers? With the exception of Livingston, there isn’t an average passer on the roster. Kaman and Maggette are absolutely incapable of delivering so much as an entry pass. Mobley and Ross can’t even run a break. Brand, because of his size, has trouble passing out of the post, or finding guys on the weak side. Cassell, Hart, and Ewing, for point guards, are below average. Thomas is probably the most adequate passer on the roster. Think about that reality for a second: Tim Thomas is the best passer on the Clippers’ active roster. When there’s nobody on the floor who can pass the ball, nobody who’s willing to move off the ball, and only one guy who can create off the dribble – and does so indiscriminately – you get a miserably stagnant offense, and rigor mortis sets in.

Posted Wednesday, October 29 at 3:20PM

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Comments

1. Entry pass to Kaman in a spot he likes = GREAT. 1 on 1 versus Webber he owns him and was owning him.
2. Double (sometimes triple) team comes and Kaman was picking up his dribble and protecting the ball = GREAT. This is actually development. In the past he would turn it over here by keeping his dribble.
3. All 4 other Clippers stand around = Sad.

Kaman drawing triple teams would seem to be a win in the long-term. And he really isn't an awful passer, he just needs someone to pass it to. He probably won't ever be jump-turn-and-precision-heave-cross-court guy, he just needs a cutter to come to the ball and he will find him.

No cutters leads to low percentage cross-court passes. He is definitely bad enough of a passer to miss those a few feet to the side. A teammate really still could come up with it, if they really wanted to.

Its a difference in fundamentals. Does playing to space exist to you? To Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio and Detroit, the answer is yes. They run to space, they can pass to space, and because their team can do it they know how to defend it.

Yes, we are struggling(against elite teams because of their full cover defense) to pass the ball and move freely without the ball. IF Kaman develops smooth passing skills by drawing double/ triple teams, that can change the fortune of this team for better.

i agree we don't have great passers, and in fact we have below avg passers at every spot (paul davis has shown passing profiency in limited time). but our offensive sets make this deficiency a much bigger weakness. dunleavy loves the match-up strategy, so much so that there's no plan b. it can work well, especially against small guards (recall nash getting abused badly in the playoffs). but most of the time our biggest offensive advantage is going to be our bigs, brand and kaman. the problem is, any moderately competent opponent simply double-teams the post (or, less often, plays zone). so then what? the clips stand around w/ fingers up asses. not even magic johnson can make a decent pass if no one is moving or cutting w/o the ball, setting screens or picks (this was the primary reason shaun's biggest talent was being wasted...u like how i snuck in a shaun/earvin comparison?) add horrific spacing, and voila - a disaster of an offense, one of the worst in the league and unbearable for any fan to watch.

i used to think it was dunleavy being too stubborn, but now it's clear to me he's actually just too dumb to realize it. it's like a stupid kid trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. someone needs to take the toy away from him, cuz the pieces don't fit, u little dipshit.

kaman should never get a pass where he has to take more than 1 dribble to shoot. and he should never shoot w/ 2 hands, unless it's a dunk, which i guess is never. he makes bad enough decisions when he has the ball for a wide-open layup, and it gets exponentially worse the farther out he goes. kaman is an awful decision-maker and a turnover machine, there's no reason to put the ball in his hands until he's in perfect position. dunleavy's "1-dribble" rule for kaman lasted a whole 1.5 days, apparently. can we reverse-oden this goofball and break one of his hands on purpose? then maybe, just maybe, he'll stick w/ one strong move in one direction and shoot w/ one hand. but then again he'd prob start using his head, literally. is that even legal? if so, how come players don't practice it? it works in futbol. ok i digress...

my personal pet peeve is how we always walk the ball up the court. i think our avg time to cross half-court is 6.8 secs. i just don't get it. we really can't use a few extra seconds to somehow get off a better shot? perhaps a repost, or an extra pass? why don't we ever take our first (and usually only) shot when the shot clock isn't red? sigh, just fucking sigh...

john r, i really hope u're not suggesting that "any other coach" heading the clips would run the same inept offense as dunleavy. i can defend (and actually agree w/) your thoughts on Q, but that statement above would be, well..."idiotic".

1. Cassell isn't playing
2. Brand is tired
3. Kaman is not playing well
4. Maggette wasn't starting (would hepled to compensate for lack of scoring punch due to 1, 2 and 3 above
5. Livingston didn't rise to expectations
6. Coaching to the opponent instead of to the strengths of our team.

Oh c'mon now. EVERY team in the league moves the ball better than the Clippers do, and it is not because the guys on those teams are naturally incredible passers. It's because the coach tells them to move the fucking ball. Our offense is stagnant and shitty because our coach is stagnant and shitty. Dunleavy should be in Kaman's and Brand's faces every practice about kicking the damn ball out of the post if nothing's there instead of waiting for a triple team and then a turnover. 29 other teams move the all better than us, and I refuse to believe Dunleavy doesn't play an amazingly large role in that.

The way Brand & Kaman handles themselves(hope the ball is still in their hands) against double/ triple teams is painfull to watch. It's like watching a surgeon doing his job with 3 knives in his hands.

That's not what I said. I said that beating on matchups is a way of life for most teams in the NBA. Clearouts, clearouts, clearouts. What makes San Antonio work is they have guys running off of the clearout. Backdoor cuts, showing to the ball, etc.

Any other coach would put EB and Kaman out there on a post and clear the rest of the team out. There would be a series of cuts around them as well as possibly an outlet.

The Clippers don't move without the ball so there is noone to kick to. Why don't they move? I don't know.

What the anti-Dunleavy forces are suggesting is that it is the design of the coach for everyone to stand completely still. This is absurd and my evidence is that every once in a great while, Cat will make a slash to the basket and Kaman will find him for an easy layup. The cuts and dives are in the scheme, they just don't happen.

I suppose another explanation is that he isn't motivating them to move. They are grown men being paid millions of dollars for a team that went to the playoffs last season. They should be sufficiently motivated.

What is your evidence a different coach would be able to achieve different results? I don't know if another coach would be more successful or not, but based on the Clippers personnel I know the scheme would look similar. Unless of course he was utterly imcompetent and then it might look like the Grizzlies or Celtics, which is what the Clippers used to look like before the organization decided it wanted to try to win and hired Dunleavy.

The funny thing about the Dunleavy bashing after this game is he got thrown out defending Maggette; allegedly his nemesis. Corey went up for a layup and pretended to get fouled and they didn't call it and he fell in a heap. Coach went out there to stick up for him and did so so fiercely that he got thrown out instantly. Its pretty much a bonehead anti-Dunleavy play by Corey by not finishing first and worrying about the foul second, but combined with the earlier tackle to Hart, Coach jumped up and got in the refs face.

Coach basically showed more intensity in that one second than any player has in some time.

"Maggette, allegedly his nemesis." Spoken like a true attorney. Maggette is not his nemesis. He's just someone who should have been starting but for Dunleavy's faulty decisionmaking.

The team obviously is not playing hard for Dunleavy at this point. Perhaps they don't respect him because of his lame attempts at nepotism (getting his son to play here) and at keeping Corey on the bench. Certainly the lack of any good point guards contributes, but come on.

So the answer, John R, is not that the schemes would change, but rather that the team might play harder for someone else.

Go search the LA Times on the weekend before Livingston got hurt, he was quoted complaining about the offense of how simple it was to defend. No bigger truth has been said all year. For the blog that started this, it neglects the fine play of last season to blame it all on the passing. No one has ever complained about Cassell prior to this.

Bottom line folks, Dunleavy is awful and unimaginative and last season was an aberration.

Here's a plan, package Brand and the two #1's we have for the #1 pick in the draft, pick either Oden or Durant. Throw a ton of money at the greek kid (he tore up Team USA this summer) to come over and play PF and start the next rebuilding.

Elton is a tremendous player, but he isn't a superstar, look at his career and any sane analyst would conclude that last season was the aberration and this season is the standard. He will never be a superstar and is probably their only tradeable commodity right now.

However, if I'm not mistaken, he's been here 6 years, and the Clips have a total of one winning season. To put all the losses on him would not be totally fair. But Superstars transcend bad situations and elevate their teams to another level. He's good. Not great.

Seems like Laker fans are giving up on their team and wasting their time trying to meddle with Clipper affairs. They can see the future. But how can they tolerate Clippers being a good team & Lakers being a mediocre team?

We understand their frustrations. But working hard to create discord in Clipper Nation? That's a waste of time.
But they have a right to dream about Brand leaving & Livingston ending his career.

But none of those are going to help Lakers. They rise with Kobe and they fall with Kobe. Talk about 'demise'. This is it.